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Art

Scaled-down art adds shared impact

Individual works in this exhibit vary in mastery, but taken together, they project an impressive gestalt that transcends individual artistry.

By LENNIE BENNETT
Published July 22, 2004

	[The Arts Center]
	Libit Jones, Bright Sunny Day, acrylic on canvas. Vicky Imes, The Blues, acrylic on canvas. Deborah Fuller, Florida Wave, mixed media.

ST. PETERSBURG - About the most obvious and unoriginal thing one can say about art is that when it's good, the whole is more than the sum of its parts. So you will forgive me as I invoke that cliche to describe the Members' Exhibition at the Arts Center.

A little background: Each year members are invited to submit a work that conforms to a unifying theme or format. This time, size was the common denominator. Two-dimensional art had to measure 12 by 36 inches. Three-dimensional work couldn't be more than 12 inches in diameter and 36 inches in height. As with all member shows, everything brought in was accepted and is on display.

The result is more than 200 resolutely horizontal or vertical paintings, prints, fiber pieces, ceramics and a few sculptures, varying from very good to amateur, modest in size, which would be a muddle except for the theme of the show, "Components."

Betsy Orbe Lester has arranged them so each is considered less an individual creation than part of the larger picture, and the effect is of one large, clever installation. A closer look at the pairings she made, based on theme, color or some quirkiness known only to her, is delightful even when the individual works don't rise into the rarified ether of "fine" art.

Reinforcing the notion that the artist doesn't serve ego but a greater good is the decision to forgo wall labels in favor of small numbers, keyed to a checklist.

An example: Five horizontal panels are packed on top of each other, linked by a referencing of the figure within the landscape. Sort of. At the top is a somber, monochromatic watercolor by Kay Sherman, On the Road to Galilee, of a shepherd herding his flock. Beneath is Norma Lewis' sprightly collage of identical figures formed from various papers, their joints held together by pins resembling hinges, like articulated toys. Neither work locates the anonymous, generic figures in a specific environment. The center panel is Mary Klein's Montana Landscape, an enameled painting of a distant but recognizable vista serenely unpeopled.

You're brought jarringly to a human moment in the fourth work, a grainy black and white photograph, Lyn Gardiner's By the River, in which a couple embrace with what looks to be a co-mingling of rage and desire as they sit on a seawall beside turbulent waters. Finally, Sara Thee Campagna's Reach Exceeds Grasp, described as mixed media but really a collaged painting, is of a disembodied hand and arm slicing across the canvas, overlaid with blotches of red paint and severed in places by bits of X-rays showing us what's beneath the surface. You might feel you need a session on the analyst's couch after connecting all those dots.

A more lighthearted grouping, united by vibrant colors and a tropical theme, also seems more coherent, if less interesting, perhaps because all are paintings of one sort or another. It consists of five horizontal panels bracketed by two verticals. At the top are Ilene Weinstein's soaring birds; on the bottom are Deborah Fuller's swimming fish.

Between are Barbara Lambert's amusing Swim Class with well-fed matrons in bathing suits, Libit Jones' quite good representation of a languid, glamorously hatted woman lounging on a pool raft, and Vicky Imes' The Blues, another lounger painted with Picasso-esque disregard for realistic skin tones. On either side are Miranda Zombon's Constricted Hibiscus, a bright still life wedged into its narrow confines, and Bonnie McPherson's Sunbrella, an abstract with equally bright circles of color. That some are more accomplished than others doesn't compromise any of them; indeed, all probably look far better juxtaposed than on their own.

The sculpture, of course, must stand alone, and it holds its own, in most cases. George Byer's contemplative work constructed of interlocking wood shafts shaped into a cylinder took the Best of Show award from judge Brad Cooper, a Tampa gallery owner. Brenda Gregory's inventive assemblage, Your Good Fortune, is interactive along the lines of a Ouija board and lots more funky. A collaborative assemblage of ceramics by Beth Manning, Kathryn Howd, Annette Bradley and Valerie Knaust, tumbled into two clear plastic containers, one laid on its side and the other propped like a vase, evokes the recently departed Dale Chihuly exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Orbe Lester's mixed media work could have gone solo, a series of little boxes within a big one, containing dozens of tchotchkes lacquered white. It merits closer study than is allowed hung on top of four other works, though it's appealing in conjunction with Taylor Oliver's Rosenquist-inspired grisaille of a car grille, Jo Schmidt's landscape of tree trunks, Diana Lucas Leavengood's ink jet print of children and Eric Lacker's painting of almost identical profiles.

Several points are being made in this arrangement. The most obvious is the idea of repetitive forms. Color, or its absence, is another, as is the idea of motion versus stasis.

Do all these interpretive leaps burden with too much portent something meant to be more simple? Maybe so. But it's a rare show that can display so many artists in a relatively small space and make coherence of it.

With the art world not any more democratic than most of the rest of the world, it's also rare that a show can allude to artists' willingness to have their work crammed cheek by jowl with work by those who are not always their peers. Also, it demonstrates the courage of beginners who invite direct comparison to better artists.

Pride and humility, in equal measures. In no small part, that's a whole lot.

- Lennie Bennett can be reached at 727 893-8293 or lennie@sptimes.com

"Components: 2004 Members' Exhibition" is at the Arts Center, 719 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, through Aug. 20. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday. Free admission. (727) 822-7872.

[Last modified July 21, 2004, 10:45:17]